


Better off dead

by Vale11



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Oneshot, chibs needs a memo, juice gets to let out some anger fucking finally, juice is a mess, juice needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9769820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vale11/pseuds/Vale11
Summary: Tully missed, that’s the first thing that comes to his mind. The second is: it’s not possible. Tully was too close to miss. Tully never misses.Not a night. Not a fucking single night with his fucking poems and his fucking flowers, and his fucking drugs and his fucking voice and his fucking hands and his fucking tattoos and his fucking swastikas and his fucking jet black hair and fuck, fuck, fuck he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, and it hurts, it hurts so much…





	

I'm sorry about the sun,  
How could I know that you'd burn?,  
And I'm sorry about the moon,  
How could I know that you'd disapprove  
I'll never make the same mistake,  
The next time I create the universe  
I'll make sure we communicate at length  
But until then, better off dead,  
A smile on the lips and a hole in the head,  
Better off dead, yeah better than this,  
Better off dead, yeah better than this,  
Take it away 'cause there's nothing to miss

Anathema - Better off dead

Tully missed, that’s the first thing that comes to his mind. The second is: it’s not possible. Tully was too close to miss. Tully never misses.  
Not a night. Not a fucking single night with his fucking poems and his fucking flowers, and his fucking drugs and his fucking voice and his fucking hands and his fucking tattoos and his fucking swastikas and his fucking jet black hair and fuck, fuck, fuck he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, and it hurts, it hurts so much…  
“Calm down, Ortiz”  
He tries to breathe, tries to move, but he can’t do either. All he can do is stare at the white ceiling, his left hand chained to the bed, an IV in his arm, tubes all inside him.  
“Ortiz, calm down and try to relax. We’ll get this out of you in no time. Ok?”  
He closes his eyes, fells like chocking, and vomiting, while they remove the tube from his throat. Slips away.

—

They gave him seven years, he got out after four. He got transferred after his assassination attempt failed, but not before letting Tully visit him to tell him that he didn’t miss: he choose to let him live. He gave him a “free pass”. Sure.  
When he gets out of prison he’s not wiser. He’s older, and lonelier. And fucking angry, and desperate, and with a fuckload on new scars on his freshly abused body and he knows now that Teller never meant to let him get back to the club because otherwise some of them would have known that he nearly died, right? Someone might have come and visit but no, no one came. So fuck them.

—

Juice always thought that some things were named after their destiny. Bolt, for instance. That guy could run, man. But Charming? That was fucking hilarious. Nothing charming about Charming, just a place full of gangs and clubs and people he doesn’t care about anymore and that he fells never cared about him. Not in a while at least. So, why did h get back there?  
The easy answer is: his place is there. He’s lucky, the place is his, his property, so it didn’t get sold or rented to someone else. His bike is waiting for him in his garage, and he feels like crying when he sees the symbol painted on her tank. He wants it gone. He will clean her up.  
The second answer is: he wants revenge. A bloodless one, but a revenge none the less. He wants his ex brothers to see him strolling down the street alive and fucking kicking. He wants them to blacken his tattoos not because it’s their right to do so, but because he wants them to. Or, even better, he’ll find a good tattoo artist and get a great cover up on the reaper inked on his arm. He’s got some money, he can afford it, he’s always been good at saving, always expecting a shitstorm to hit. He’s not the same man anymore, but it turned out useful anyway. He will use them to open his own computer shop in town, and get rid of that fucking skeleton. He’ll think abut his bike himself: she’s his baby, and he doesn’t want anyone else to touch her. He knows how it feels. Knows it too well. 

—

The guy he chooses to cover his reaper is an old viking with a white beard and long, yellowish hair. He’s good at his job, a true artist, and paints with ink, needles and blood a broken tower on his arm, the tarot symbol for destruction and rebirth, with a cartouche that says “this will pass, be still and know”. He loves his new tat, loves that one of the marks that linked him to that goddamned club is gone, loves the song he choose the words from. When he was doing time in St. Quentin he met this guy, a true music love, a fucking human juke box, that made him his pupil teaching him everything about heavy metal. He owes the guy a lot of his mental sanity, he owes him for Moorhead, and Machine head, and Black Label Society and a fuckload of bands that are saving his life now, as he tinkers in his shop whit his iPod blasting out Black Sabbath from a pair of cheap speakers he found in a second hand shop.  
“Hm - he hears - nice music. You finally stopped with that stupid gangsta rap”  
And there he his. Booted feet, hands in his pockets, a chain dangling from his cut. Chibs wears the president patch, and that’s pretty unsettling: he thought Jax would have fought till death to keep it, but he finds that he doesn’t care. He looks at Chibs, the best friend he ever had, the man who told him to eat his gun, the guy that left him to be destroyed at the hands of some nazi psycho and scowls.  
“What can I do for you, Telford?”  
It’s a low blow, and he knows it. He enjoys it. He relishes in the small flinch that Chibs tries to hide. The man looks at him, really looks at him, and quirks an eyebrow. Takes note of his new tattoo, of the new anger he wears on his face, and looks pensive. He kept the mohawk, though. He likes it. It scares people.  
Chibs takes a couple of steps and gets to the counter, bounces a cigarette on his index finger, offers it to him. He just crosses his arms and shakes his head.  
“I stopped. What do you want?”  
Good for you - Chibs mutters - good for you”  
He looks older, weary. And, Juice doesn’t give a fuck about that.  
“I thought they gave you seven years, not four. I was waiting for you at the club when I heard you got out”  
That’s the last straw: Juice starts laughing so hard and so cruelly that Chibs really flinches this time, takes a step back. Then Juice does something he never did before: he screams, fucking roars.  
“Are you fucking kidding me? - he asks, half destroying his t-shirt to show the three scars that Tully left on his neck and collarbone - are you fucking kidding me, Telford?”  
Chibs eyes are huge, now. He lifts his hands and tries to touch him but juice recoils, steps back, hunches on himself.  
“Fuck, Juicy. God - he stammers - what happened to you?”  
That’s worse than the bruises he got when he tried to hang himself, Chibs thinks. Those faded, these scars are there to stay.  
Juice leers.  
“Fuck you, stop fucking with me”  
“I’m not, Juice - Chibs says, stammering - I swear to God, I’m not”  
And then Juice jumps, feeling Chibs’ hand on his skin, fingers exploring the three small, nearly fatal marks. He nearly breaks down but steels himself, snarling.  
“Who did this to you?”  
Chibs is still touching him, and he feels his skin crawling with memories of locked rooms and roaming unwanted hands and painpainpain. It must show, because Chibs’eyes get scared. Not of him, but for him. He doesn’t like it. He needs it. He missed it. He doesn’t know how to feel.  
“You did”  
He spits out the words like poison, aiming to hurt. Chibs recoils.  
“What do you mean?”  
“Fuck Chibs, stop this bullshit, will you?”  
He’s not screaming now. He’s tired, and feels defeated, and doesn’t even realize that he calls him Chibs.  
“I told Jax the truth, he told Tully to have fun with me and then kill me. You all asked him to kill me, right? There was a vote I suppose - he whisper, not noticing Chibs shaking his head - so stop with this shit. Wanna know something funny, though? I didn’t lie, it wasn’t totally my idea: i suggested to pin it on the chinese, and Gemma went with it all the way. I did it for Jax, so that he wouldn’t lose his wife and his mother in the same day - he laughs. It’s scary and creepy and borderline psychotic - and I got repaid with a Mayhem vote. Fucking thank you, man”  
“We didn’t vote for Mayhem, Juicy. I swear to God, we didn’t. I thought you would come back after doing your time. Never came to see you ‘cause i still was angry but never wanted you dead”  
He can’t do this. Juice feels his control slipping, his dams breaking. He wants Chibs out of his shop. He wants him to hug him and say that it’s alright, everything will be sorted out. He wants, but he doesn’t know what. And then it dawns on him.  
“You didn’t know?”  
Chibs feels frozen. Shakes his head no, looks at Juice, at his shop, at his bike parked outside, at the new tattoo on his arm and thinks “we did this to him, and he did this to himself too. But we did this to him, never listening to him when he was asking for help, telling him to get his cock sucked as if it was therapeutic and never really helping”.  
That’s the thing: Juice was too human to belong with Samcro, he knows it now.  
He replays his words and shudders.  
“What do you mean when you say that Tully had fun with you, boy?”  
“Don’t call me like that - Juice growls - you lost the right”  
And he’s right. The man in front of him is everything but the kid he knew. This Juice is scary, and stronger, but there’s something broken about him. He stays silent anyway, waits for an answer. Juice’s smile is all teeth, predatory, a far cry from what his smiles used to be.  
“Jax told him I could use some affection, if you get the meaning. Jarry and Unser knew, by the way. Never told you? Oh, this is going to be fun. Tully obliged, anyway - he answers after a while, hands playing with some wires he was working with before this all came down - he obliged often. Every day, every fucking night. Then hmmm… let me think about it. The chinese obliged too, after i killed Lin.”  
He says it nonchalantly, cruelly, but it’s killing him. Chibs falters, feels the president patch burn on his chest, covers his face with his hands and feels the walls closing in.  
Not this, it can’t be. Jax couldn’t be so cruel, could he? Not his golden boy, not him. He feels sick.  
“Shit, Juicy. I didn’t know. Jesus Christ, I swear I didn’t know”  
He sidesteps the counter and tries to hug him like he used to do, but Juice jumps back, eyes huge, scared and dark, hands held protectively in front of him. Chibs feels like crying when he hears him ask not to touch him. Plead not to. He reaches out.

Juice sees him extend one hand and is scared. Scared shitless, and angry. How dares he. How fucking dares he. He could have helped him before, he could have listened to him, he could have saved him, but he didn’t, and now it’s too late and he’s broken, and tainted, and ugly. But Chibs’hand fastens on his ruined t-shirt and gets him close and his head fits perfectly against his collarbone and he feels ringed fingers on his scalp and he’s punching those shoulders, punching them like a child would, and Chibs is saying that he’s sorry, so fucking sorry, he didn’t know. He didn’t know.  
And he finds himself shaking and crying like a fucking kid and he hates it. And he’s missed this so much it hurts.  
—

Juice tells him everything, propped up on the counter of his now closed for the night shop, legs dangling and boots weighing down his feet. Chibs is sitting on a wooden chair, smoking a cigarette. He lets him smoke inside. He doesn’t really care.  
All he cares about is that the man is finally listening to him, even if it’s too little, too late. He tells him about Darvany, about how devastating it felt, he tells him that he stole Bobby’s painkillers and overdosed at Diosa after a full blown panic attack, that he wanted to die, that sometimes still does. That he told Nero the truth because he was high as a kite, and not because he ratted. He just blurted it out-then everything went to shit.  
And Chibs listens to him, wide eyed and cigarette forgotten, curses when it burns his fingers, gets up and throws it out of the door. Sits back down, hides his face in his hands. Exhales.  
“Fuck Juice. Fuck. I didn’t know. I didn’t listen”  
“You could have, I tried to tell you. I called you.”  
It’s not cruel, it’s just true.  
“Aye, you did”  
He sniffs, clears his throat and his hands on his jeans.  
“Want a beer, Juicy? You still drink?”  
Juice nods, Chibs looks at him.  
“You’re not coming back to the club?”  
“Not in this lifetime, man - he hisses - no”  
His iPod is blasting Alter Bridge now. He likes them, finds them relaxing.  
“Can I come and visit you, then? - Chibs asks - In your shop I mean, or at your place. You still live there?”  
Juice nods again. Of course Chibs can visit. Nothing is really forgotten and forgiven, not yet, but that’s the right way to start. He’ll never go to the clubhouse, though. Not even close. Never again.  
“Right - Chibs gets up, extends an arm and waits for Juice to join him - let’s go, I owe you a beer. Actually, Juicy, I owe you a lot more. We all do”  
Juice is not looking at him, biting his lower lip and shrugging.  
“You can start with getting me drunk”  
“Aye boy - Chibs nearly smiles when Juice just looks at him and lets him call him boy. He’s his boy, always will be. And he feels so guilty for letting him down like that. - That I can do”


End file.
